


They Don't Understand You

by Muir_Wolf



Category: Big Bang Theory
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-05
Updated: 2011-02-05
Packaged: 2017-10-15 10:35:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/159966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muir_Wolf/pseuds/Muir_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sheldon doesn't need anyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Don't Understand You

**Author's Note:**

> I mostly wrote this because I was trying to get a grasp on how I'd ship them if I shipped them. (I do that sometimes.)

Penny wants them to be _normal._ She’s waiting for them to kiss, she’s waiting for them to fall head-over-heels, she’s waiting on them to hold hands and tuck hands into each other’s back pockets and share beds and hug for too long and never want to be apart.

Penny expects _lust_ , and _passion_ , and that’s because no matter how many times Sheldon has explained that he’s above such desires, that he is _homo novus_ to her _homo sapien_ , he can tell by the tilt of her head, her raised eyebrow, that she refuses to take him seriously.

(And yes, he’s had enough experience with people amused on his account, laughing _at_ him, never with him, that he can recognize that expression. _“Laugh, and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone,”_ his mother always said, hand on his cheek, and he’d shrugged her off, because he didn’t cry and he didn’t laugh, and he didn’t care what the rest of the world chose to do. He didn’t.)

Penny and Leonard insist on referring to Amy as his girlfriend. As if he requires such a component in his life, as if he is incapable of being whole on his own, as if he is a half, and requires another to make himself complete. But he is complete as he is. He needs no one else.

Amy does not make him feel more complete.

She provides…companionship. Intellectual stimulation.

(It is difficult, sometimes, being a species to oneself, living so far above everyone else, forced to associate with people who simply cannot comprehend on the levels at which he is able.)

Amy is closer to his level than anyone he has ever met. Not _at_ his level, of course, but still… When he receives her text messages, when she shares an amusing anecdote, when she understands his references, he does not feel so entirely (not alone, he is not lonely, he does not _require_ companionship)…

Separate, perhaps.

He does not feel as if he is entirely _separate._

(When she leaves him, he does not feel abandoned, because he does not require people.)

(He does not miss her. That is emotional drivel.)

(Besides, she was _wrong._ )

Sheldon does not want a girlfriend. The requirements of physical contact and emotional bonds alone seem oppressive and, frankly, disgusting. Saliva should be kept in one’s own mouth, and suffered individually. Sharing it is through mouth-to-mouth contact is simply unthinkable. _Apes._

 

 

Of course…

Of course, these are the mating requirements for _homo sapiens_.

Sheldon is not a _homo sapien_.

Perhaps…perhaps it is different amongst _homo novus._ Perhaps a relationship can be built upon science rather than emotion. A meeting of minds, rather than bodies.

Perhaps that moment, when they reconcile, is not underlined with emotion (ridiculous), but with the intellectual fact that they share a mutually beneficial friendship that would be unfortunate to sever over such differences.

Perhaps, over dinner, as they discuss those things they have in common (those things that they alone seem to share in a world of _homo sapiens_ , a world of strangers), perhaps he can admit that she is beneficial to him.

This does not have to be a friendship with a girl, this does not have to be a relationship with a girl.

Perhaps this is natural selection. Perhaps this is evolution at work.

(This is not love, because he does not believe in love, he believes in neurons and adrenaline, he believes in science and science alone.)

Outside, as they walk, when he hands her his jacket (cleaned that morning), it is because she had shivered, and he was not cold, and there is nothing more to it, nothing more to the way she looked in his clothing, nothing to the way her lips quirked up in amusement (with him, _with him_ ) when she pulled out his phone out of the pocket and reminded him he might have need of it.

And when they go to the movie theatre, and he buys red vines, and then offers to share (they respect each other enough to know they both keep the required hygienic levels), it is only because it is cost effective.

And when she defers to his judgment of the perfect location in the theater, allowing him to call out at different locations, he is not (warmed) pleased with her patience, because it is simply _how_ it should be done, and she is merely intelligent enough to understand this.

And when he has not seen her for a week, he does not miss her. They have texted several times, and emailed back-and-forth. They have kept in contact. He has no need of her physical presence, when the virtual is just as effective.

(She does not ease something inside, she does not make something loosen that has restricted his chest for so long he no longer recognizes it for what it is, she does not make him happy.)

(She does not make him comfortable.)

She is a friend, who happens to be a girl, who happens to understand him as he is, who does not try to change him.

( _“Shelly,”_ his mother would say, _“Don’t worry, God’s got someone out there for everyone, even you.”_

 _“Mother—”_

She’d kiss his cheek, ignoring the way he’d scrub it off.

 _“You just wait, Shelly, there’s someone out there.”_ )

He doesn’t need anyone.

He’s never _needed_ anyone at all.

 

  
_...Finis..._   



End file.
